Clare Murphy

Abortion Support Network expands service to Malta and Gibraltar (Press Release)

Published on February 14, 2019

In the spirit of Valentine’s Day, ASN brings the gift of confidential, non-judgemental information and funding for abortion costs to new countries

Roses are Red, Violets are Blue
Ireland has safe legal abortion
So we’re expanding to help Malta and Gibraltar too!

Abortion Support Network (ASN), a small UK-based charity providing financial assistance, practical information and accommodation to those living in countries with restrictive abortion laws, announced today that it has launched its service to people resident in Malta and Gibraltar. As of today, anyone in those countries will be able to ring the ASN helpline, visit the ASN website or send an email and receive confidential, non-judgmental information about the least expensive way to arrange abortion and travel, clinics that ASN works with in several EU countries, and, where necessary, receive financial help towards the cost of travelling from your home country and paying privately to access a safe, legal abortion.

Currently Malta is the only country in Europe where abortion is completely against the law, whereas the law in Gibraltar allows abortion to save a woman’s life.

ABORTION PILL HORROR Former Aberdeen student reveals her agony at having an abortion in the back of a taxi – and she’s not the only one faced with this horrific ordeal

Claudia, 23, had no choice but to go through an abortion in the back of a cab. -but she's not the only one

By Zoe Apostolides
10th July 2018

BENT double in the back of a cab with agonising cramps and feeling herself starting to bleed is not how Claudia expected her abortion to happen.

A student in her final year at Aberdeen University, Claudia, now 23, made the tough decision to terminate her pregnancy at seven weeks last year – but was forced to go through the trauma of starting to bleed on her way home from the hospital in the back of a stranger’s taxi.

Wales to allow women to take second abortion pill at home
Women in Wales will be allowed to take the second medication needed in a medical termination to be taken at home.

Friday 29 June 2018

By Sanya Burgess, news reporter

Wales is to allow women to take the abortion pill at home to avoid bleeding and pain in public. The change in the rules will allow women to take the second abortion pill at home, announced Welsh Health Secretary Vaughan Gething.

Guidance will be issued to health boards in Wales today to allow misoprostol, the second medication needed in a medical termination, to be self-administered at home.

Women in their 30s are behind first surge in abortion rates in six years, as generation faces growing pressure over their careers

- More than a third of abortions last year were carried out for women over 30
- Teenage abortion has plunged alongside the rapid drop in teen pregnancies
- The increase in abortion levels among older women points to growing pressure on a generation of women over careers

By Steve Doughty for the Daily Mail

Published: 7 June 2018

The number of abortions in England and Wales is rising for the first time in six years, pushed up by a surge in terminations for older women.

More than a third last year were carried out for women over 30, and there were nearly three times as many abortions among over-30s as there were for teenagers.

Teenage abortion numbers have plunged alongside the rapid drop in teen pregnancies over the past decade.

Without At-Home Abortion Pills, Women Risk Miscarrying In Public
Wales announced plans to follow Scotland and allow women to take the second abortion pill at home - when will the rest of the UK join?

19/04/2018
By Rachel Moss

Beth Redmond, 25, from Merseyside, was in her first year of university when she became pregnant and decided to have an abortion. Miles from home, with no close friends and family nearby, she was forced to pay someone from her course, whom she barely knew, £20 to drive her the 45-minute journey to the abortion clinic, because her doctor had advised her against taking public transport.

As soon as Beth left the clinic her miscarriage symptoms began, she experienced pain and heavy bleeding. “It was like period pain but 10 times worse, and with the added anxiety of being in a near stranger’s car, for 45 minutes,” she tells HuffPost UK. “I crawled from the car to my room and stayed there for a couple of days.”

This Is Why Women In England Can't Take Abortion Pills At Home
In England it is illegal to take abortion pills at home. This has nothing to do with clinical advice and everything to do with politics, say experts.

by Vicky Spratt
18 04 2018

Across the United Kingdom (with the exception of Northern Ireland) abortion has been legal since the 1967 Abortion Act came into force. However, many experts argue that it’s still not as accessible as it could be.

When Sarah (not her real name) was 16 she accidentally became pregnant and decided to have an abortion. At the time, she was living in a commuter belt town where South London meets the Surrey Hills. She recalls how her GP referred her to a London clinic for a medical abortion (which involves taking pills as opposed to undergoing a surgical procedure).

The coming battle to liberalise abortion—in Britain
While the Republic of Ireland prepares for a referendum on the 8th amendment, British activists are gearing up to fight their own battle for liberalisation

by Sian Norris
April 12, 2018

At the end of May, Ireland is set to become the latest European country to legalise abortion. A referendum to repeal the country’s 8th Amendment could lead to the end of restrictive laws which, according to the United Nations, violate women’s human rights. That would leave just two European nations where abortion remains illegal: Malta and Northern Ireland. But there are three other nations in Europe that retain highly restrictive laws which criminalise abortion unless performed under certain circumstances. And one of those is Great Britain.

There is a widespread assumption in this country that the 1967 Abortion Act, part of Roy Jenkins’s raft of reforms which created the “permissive society,” decriminalised abortion in England, Scotland and Wales. That’s not strictly accurate. The 1967 Act provided exemptions under which women would not be prosecuted according to the 1861 Offences Against the Person Act.

Here's the number of abortion pills seized in Ireland in the past 10 years
“There is a risk when you buy anything from an unknown source that you simply do not know what you are getting.”

Apr 2, 2018

MORE THAN 6,000 abortion pills have been seized in Ireland over the past 10 years.

The use of abortion pills in Ireland has become a major point in the debate on whether Ireland should liberalise its abortion laws: the chair of the Citizens’ Assembly said that in retrospect it should have spent more time discussing abortion pills.

Because abortion is illegal in Ireland (unless there’s a serious risk to the woman’s life) it’s difficult to get a clear picture of how often abortion pills are ordered online by Irish women from countries where they’re legal.